While we’re on the subject, Twitter is also trying to improve its news content. They just launched cutely-named Birdwatch, which will let vetted users flag and notate misleading Tweets. Let’s be blunt: the list of things that could go wrong is far longer than the list of things that could go right.
Raise your hand if you think the problem with today’s news industry is that Facebook doesn’t have enough control over the news people see. But you’re not in charge, Dear Reader, so they’re launching a UK version of the Facebook News program that’s been live in the U.S. since June. Story selection is based on a mix of curation and personal behaviors. Facebook shares a few crumbs of revenue with news providers.
Facebook’s competitor known for its privacy stance of not viewing its users’ posts has gained millions of viewers recently as mainstream platforms face heightened scrutiny. In context, MeWe reports 16 million users, while Facebook claims more than 1.8 billion.
CDP mParticle is being acquired by ecommerce platform Rokt for a price of $300 million. It’s the third acquisition of a leading independent CDP in a little over one month, following Uniphore’s purchase of ActionIQ and Contentstack’s purchase of Lytics. All three buyers offer some type of customer-facing technology; apparently they’ve decided that adding real-time profiles from CDP will give them a competitive edge. (See this blog post for more analysis.)